jñāto 'si me 'dya sucirān nanu deha-bhājāṁ
na jñāyate bhagavato gatir ity avadyam
nānyat tvad asti bhagavann api tan na śuddhaṁ
māyā-guṇa-vyatikarād yad urur vibhāsi
brahmā uvāca-Lord Brahmā said; jñātaḥ-known; asi-You are; me-by me; adya-today; sucirāt-after a long time; nanu-but; deha-bhājām-of one who has a material body; na-not; jñāyate-is known; bhagavataḥ-of the Personality of Godhead; gatiḥ-course; iti-so it is; avadyam-great offense; na anyat-none beyond; tvat-You; asti-there is; bhagavan-O my Lord; api-even though there is; tat-anything that may be; na-never; śuddham-absolute; māyā-material energy; guṇa-vyatikarāt-because of the mixture of the modes of; yat-to which; uruḥ-transcendental; vibhāsi-You are.
Lord Brahmā said: O my Lord, today, after many, many years of penance, I have come to know about You. Oh, how unfortunate the embodied living entities are that they are unable to know Your personality! My Lord, You are the only knowable object because there is nothing supreme beyond You. If there is anything supposedly superior to You, it is not the Absolute. You exist as the Supreme by exhibiting the creative energy of matter.
The highest peak of the ignorance of the living entities who are conditioned by material bodies is that they are unaware of the supreme cause of the cosmic manifestation. Different people have different theories regarding the supreme cause, but none of them are genuine. The only supreme cause is Viṣṇu, and the intervening impediment is the illusory energy of the Lord. The Lord has employed His wonderful material energy in manifesting many, many wonderful distractions in the material world, and the conditioned souls, illusioned by the same energy, are thus unable to know the supreme cause. The most stalwart scientists and philosophers, therefore, cannot be accepted as wonderful. They only appear wonderful because they are instruments in the hands of the illusory energy of the Lord. Under illusion, the general mass of people deny the existence of the Supreme Lord and accept the foolish products of illusory energy as supreme.